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Microsoft Awarded Patent For Peer-To-Peer DRM
An anonymous reader writes "Music DRM might not be as dead as previously thought. InformationWeek reports that Microsoft has been awarded a digital-rights management patent for a distributed DRM system that works over peer-to-peer networks and uses encrypted public and private keys as the licensing mechanism. The author claims that patent number 7,594,275, entitled simply 'Digital rights management system,' is significant because, while centralized music stores like iTunes don't use DRM anymore, the Microsoft patent makes it possible that peer-to-peer networks could reemerge in the future as a viable, albeit protected, source of content."
Let me be the first to say:
This sucks donkey balls!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
"embrace" and all that?
Look:
it possible that peer-to-peer networks could reemerge in the future as a viable, albeit protected, source of content."
re-emerge? they're already here, and not going away
viable? check, they are today
source of content? check, massively
protected? who wants that? There's no demand on the customer side. Unprotected will always win. Heck, I've downloaded cracks for games that I bought and I'm sure if I were to ask for a show of hands, it would be huge.
How about making content more convenient instead of more troublesome? Maybe then you'd stand a chance, you know?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Perhaps I missed this in the TFA, but how exactly do they plan on actually releasing the keys? The whole point of DRM is to keep the keys out of your reach. I cannot think of a single, viable way to hide the key exchange without some black-box single point of distribution. Sure you can distribute the encrypted content via P2P... but unless the keys are decentralized as well... calling it a P2P system is just a touch disingenuous.
The key-servers still will represent a single point of failure, and a single point of ownership. Now we'll just pay for most of the bandwidth instead of them.
The Geek in Black
I know my BCD's (when I'm Sober)
If DRM didn't work for music, why on Earth does Microsoft think it will work for p2p software? Another question: If we have a DRM-free p2p protocol like BitTorrent, why on Earth does Microsoft think that people are going to flock to their proprietary, restricted protocol?
That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
Up until this point I have two ways of downloading content: Quick and easy from a dedicated server, but DRMed, or slowly and unreliably from peer-to-peer networks, but DRM-free.
So now Microsoft kindly offers me a service that has all the slowness and unreliability that peer-to-peer networks, while keeping all the restrictions of DRM? Brilliant!
Are blog drooling morons not aware that patents take YEARS to go from filing to accept to grant? You can't tell anything about a company's strategic direction from their patent portfolio. Engineers get bribes for filing, and lawyers get paychecks, and that's about all the motivation needed to file a patent - any old shit will do.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Write a client that ignores the DRM.
I wonder how much money they spent on developing that POS.
Do you want me to have the content or not?
If you want me to have the content, you can't make me unhave the content.
If you don't want me to have the content, *just sod off already*.
There's no place for DRM in the world. It's fundamentally flawed at its principles.
DRM, aka Digital Restrictions Management, simply sucks. The content is not protected, it's crippled. Besides I don't see how crippled content could compete with free content already present on P2P networks, no matter whether the DRM is centralized or not.
Anyway now the idea itself is crippled too because it's patented, which significantly reduces the chances of seeing such an implementation anytime soon. For that, thank you Microsoft!
Isn't this sort of what spotify already do?
Not anymore than the Internet is P2P anyway. It'll be a slight more advanced form of distribution from someone in control of the DRM to those without control of the DRM. The whole point of peer-to-peer is that it's millions of peers sharing all sorts of shit. Everything from the mainstream to the obscure. of course not all the obscure things are on TPB but there are much more specialized niche sites. There's usually something for everyone. That's what makes it popular, who cares what this is?
Is there anybody that think that iTunes don't have the server capacity? Bullshit. If you're paying you might as well pay another 5 cent so they host the bandwidth. That's cheap central bandwidth, unlike your expensive last mile bandwidth. What peer-to-peer did was to distribute that already low cost from one server to all the peers, so that people actually operate torrent sites without killing themselves on bandwidth as opposed to the old ftp servers. That way you didn't have to start with micropayments, and just share.
So yeah whatever make a DRM'd P2P network. It won't have any of the appeal of free P2P or any real advantage over centralized DRM. Good luck on that.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I believed the customers had spoken out clearly enough about DRM. All sites i have seen lately that sells music are totally into mp3.
I dont think people will take it up the shute any more willingly just because its movies thats DRM tainted. Especially not now when movies is getting into all sorts of gadgets like mobile phones, media players, netbooks and game devices etc.
DRM only do one thing from the paying customer perspective, severely limits the portability of paid content. It does not bring any benefits whatsoever. It also makes pirated/cracked content better than bought content and thats really not a good selling point. My kid really hates Microsoft because of how bad the DRM in GTA4 was and how many hoops he had to jump through to get it installed and working. He actually d/l a pirated version even if he has a legit copy, just to avoid the DRM stuff. I have a really hard time explaining to him why he should pay for his games after stuff like this.
The reason Microsoft is so into this is pretty obvious. They want to be the gatekeeper between people and their content so that any content will demand Microsoft licenses to be usable.
HTTP/1.1 400
Re-emerge? BBC iPlayer, in its desktop not Flash-streaming form, is already a DRM'd p2p distribution system. Has been very successful though not as much as the straight Flash-based service from what I can tell.
Cheers,
Ian
Patenting bad thing is actually good for the rest of us?
Patents by their purpose and nature stifle competition, and restrict the use of whatever they patent, either through complete prohibition of use by third parties, or by raising the cost of using them due to licensing fees.
That's why we hate patenting GOOD technologies that will actually benefit users. But here we have a thoroughly-hated technology being patented. Is that bad for us? I'd argue it's good, becuase it precisely means that other would be DRM-users are now in a more difficult position to use this form of DRM. Whereas before the patent was filed, everyone could freely use this type of DRM, now only Microsoft is able to do so. If X companies patent X different DRM technologies, then they are only able to use their own patents (or pay each other licensing fees, plus all the overhead of contracts, litigation, whatever), whereas each company would be able to freely use all the DRM technologies in lieu of the patent. So when companies stifle each other's attempts to implement restrictive technology, the rest of us benefits.
Yes, if this was a "traditional" patent which brought some kind of innovation into the field, you could argue that the backside is that publishing this innovation would allow others to use it (albeit with licensing expenses), whereas it would be completely unavailable without the invention being done and patented. But as with other kinds of software "patents", there is pretty much no meaningful innovation involved -- it's all about taking prior art technologies, shuffling around the definitions, and submitting a patent before the next guy does.
So go ahead, DRM companies, spend time and money patenting your DRM technologies, which will restrict their use by other companies. Unbewittingly, you are doing the free software community a favor.
So, Microsoft is breaking the law in Brazil
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Well. As everyone will tell you, a encryptation system that give the attacker the unencryptation algoritym, enormeous ammounts of data unencrypted and such data encrypted is stupid.
Also, P2P is less efficient (for the downloaders) than C2S. Why would the nodes download at slower speed from a legal P2P DRM network, wen can download from a warez C2S service, like a FTP, or a HTTP server like Megaupload. Humm?
And I think DRM sould be illegal, has remove stuff like second sale, and the freedom to use a tool for whatever the buyer need it, where he need it. The people selling stuff with DRM is on a confussion, are selling CD's, or are selling licenses?, If I lost my CD, can I download it again because I own a license? If I am buying a fisical product, can I make it whatever i want, like backups?, or sell to other people. With DRM the seller want to have both the rights of a license and a product, and give none of these right to the buyer.
-Woof woof woof!
I suppose to avoid patent infringement we shouldn't use DRM on our P2P networks. How will we all manage :o)
That was supposed to be "Thoughts from England"
To have as much money and resources as MS does, and to still be actually patenting such technology, shows that they don't understand, like, computers and stuff.
I mean...nobody wants to buy that DRM'd stuff. Ordinary folks are finally starting to figure out themselves that DRM sucks. It's taken a decade or so, but they're coming around.
expandfairuse.org
A bit off-topic, I know, but what has been the result for Apple of removing DRM from the iTunes store? How much more did they sell? And what if the result had been negative, would they have gone back to the old DRM'd scheme?
-- Cheers!
That's one patent they can keep.
Let me be the first to say:
This sucks donkey balls!
On a more optimistic note, if this patent is enforced, nobody (except Microsoft) can make DRM'ed peer-to-peer networks---that is, you'll get less DRM.
Right? ;-)
Because that is exactly what DRM is. Microsoft can use DRM to lock people into it's software, and for some reason society as a whole is too stupid to recognize this.
If all multimedia content on the web gets infected with their DRM malware, you will have no choice but to use their software to access it... It isn't rocket science.
I mean, I have only twice ever heard of someone buying MS software. Once, when someone bought Vista. I ended the friendship, because he thought it would be the greatest OS, and that MS is a nice company.
1 Open Amazon.com.
2 Search for software best sellers.
3 Case closed.
I buy my music legally. I don't p2p, but that's my thing - people can do what they want. That being said - If I'm going to pay for my music, I'll be damned if I'm going to be a host so other people can download their music from me unless they lower the cost of music from $1.29/$0.99 to $0.64/$0.49.
It seems that most people stop at software patents. But like the killer weed in the other article posted today, the assumption that patents are good will die hard. To do something about just software patents will only do minor damage as the lawyers will try to find some other way to keep software patents around without actually calling them that.
Better to do away with patents altogether.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
Any P2P offering requires the generosity of people who have already downloaded it to keep sharing it to others. This "good will" is the glue that keeps an offering going. With DRMed content, I predict there will be a LOT less good will amongst people who use P2P, and thus those offerings will be the least reliable and least available. Unless this P2P service is bundled into a larger software package or platform, like the zune phone or xbox720.
Sheldon
I was always told by my music composition teachers to never "give away" my i.p. -- the general sentiment being that it is harmful to not only myself, but to all the other composers trying to make a living, too. They also stressed that it has caused long-term damage to the quality of the art form in the past, as well. They're adamant about this because they know their history, and they know that when copyright and i.p. have been non-existent or disregarded in the past, it has resulted in the suffering of artists and art alike...so when I hear "down with DRM" and "down with copyright", I associate it with "down with art" and "down with artists". Is that really what you're intending, because that's for sure how it's coming across to the "evil industry" that's so easy to hide behind. IMO, there's a baby in that bathwater ...and it's being thrown out a little more everytime copyright is infringed. How can you blame its parents for being disgusted and trying to stop you after knowing they feel like you're killing the art? All money and greed aside, it's the driven artists that create the best and most influential works of our time, and we all suffer if making a living dedicating themselves to it becomes so difficult as to be impossible.
..is dead, we can assume that MS do what they are best at: collecting patents for extinct technologies.
"...while centralized music stores like iTunes don't use DRM anymore, the Microsoft patent makes it possible that peer-to-peer networks could reemerge in the future as a viable, albeit protected, source of content."
so Microsoft thinks people will ditch iTunes, Amazon, etc. for this why?????
From the article:
So it's a combination of two things:
And for this they have been granted a patent? *le sigh*
There is no such thing as good luck. There is only misfortune and its occasional absence.
This is a very shrewd way of Microsoft positioning themselves to benefit from an emerging market.
P2P is growing both in terms of public awareness (thepiratebay, napster) and legal usage (e.g., Aion open beta being available through torrent the last few weeks - I saw over 164000 peers at one point...). However, governments are starting to clamp down on P2P specifically. The UK Government has a paper open to comment until the 29th September and due to be implemented next year, trying to track P2P users and potentially removing their broadband access.
This is likely to culminate in lots of restrictions on P2P technologies, which will end one of two ways:
1) Technology war, where the network is changed in subtle ways to avoid detection (torrents via SSL, mass VPN uptake). I can only see the more technically minded people doing this, though.
2) P2P networks are effectively blocked by mass ISP cooperation brought on by legislation, the only allowable exception added to the legislation is P2P with added DRM, and, lo and behold, if you want to make one of those, you have to pay a licence to Microsoft. Cha-ching.
Microsoft will be of course betting on the latter outcome, whether it works out that way this was a small outlay for them to give a potentially massive return. It's down to the market penetration of a suitable solution, really. Napster made P2P common, but after it shut down, your average mainstream user who wanted to download music didn't go to torrents or anything like that. To properly succeed, the appropriate solution will need to be easy to use and in the wide mainstream consciousness.
No, it will not result in less DRM. Microsoft will just license this digital restrictions management technology to other mega corporations. So Microsoft will just get even more money to finance their evil agendas. Software patents must die!
Becoming a patent troll is now clearly a Microsoft objective.
Microsoft did not invent itunes or napster and they are just demonstrating theft of innovation in software intellectual property.
Shame on them.
centralized music stores like iTunes don't use DRM anymore, [...] peer-to-peer networks could reemerge in the future as a viable, albeit protected, source of content
Is it just me, or are they trying to imply that iTunes is not a viable source of content because they got rid of the DRM?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
This is good news, as no-one except Microsoft can do DRM over P2P now, so its yet another nail in DRM's coffin.
Um, i didn't know they went away. Sorry but DRM in any form is bad.
---- Booth was a patriot ----